Calvert of Strathore eBook

in the world was but a lonely, uninteresting city.
Toward the close of August Mr. Jefferson received
from Congress that permission to return home which
he had solicited for so long, and, without loss of
time, he prepared to leave France for, as he supposed,
an absence of a few months, at most. Among the
multitude of public and private affairs to be arranged
before his departure, his friends were not forgotten,
and he made many farewell visits to Versailles, Marly-le-Roi,
and St. Germain. He had not thought it possible,
however, to see his friends at Azay-le-Roi, but the
middle of September found his affairs so nearly settled,
and, his passage not being taken until the 26th of
the month, he one day proposed to Calvert that they
should make the journey into Touraine.

“Tis the most beautiful part of France,”
he said to the young man, “and I have a fancy
to show you the country for the first time and to say
farewell to our friends, Madame d’Azay and Madame
de St. Andre.”

To this proposition the young man assented, suddenly
determining that he would see Adrienne and put his
fortune to the touch. ’Twas intolerable
to remain longer in such a state of uncertainty and
feverish unhappiness, he decided. Any fate—­the
cruellest—­would be preferable to the doubt
which he suffered. And surely he was right, and
uncertainty the greatest suffering the heart can know.

“At the worst she can hurt me no more cruelly
than she has already,” he said to himself.
“She shall know that I love her, even though
that means I shall never see her again.”

His determination once taken, he was as eager as possible
to be off, and, by the 16th, all was in readiness
for their departure. Passports were obtained
from Lafayette and places reserved in the public diligence.
They took only one servant with them—­the
man Bertrand, whom Galvert had been at pains to ferret
out and take into his employ, thinking to prevent
him from mingling again with the ruffians and cutthroats
of the Palais Royal and faubourgs. Such was the
fellow’s devotion to Calvert that he abandoned
his revolutionary and bloody comrades and took service
joyfully with the young man, delighted to be near
and of use to him.

The journey into Touraine was a very short and a very
pleasant one to Mr. Jefferson and Calvert. The
diligence left Paris by the Ivry gate, stopping for
the night at Orleans. The next morning at dawn
they were again upon their way and bowling swiftly
along the great highway that led down into the valley
of the Loire, past Amboise and Blois and Vouvray to
the old town of Tours, lying snugly between the Loire
and the Cher. They came into the rue Royale just
as the sun was flinging a splendor over everything—­on
the gray cathedral spires and the square tower of
Charlemagne and the gloomy Tour de Guise, and as they
crossed the great stone bridge to the old quarter
of St. Symphorien, the Loire flowed away beneath them
like some fabled stream of molten gold.